


Period of Adjustment

by phoenixnz



Series: The Chronicles of Martha and Jonathan [6]
Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 04:44:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6641863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixnz/pseuds/phoenixnz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonathan and Martha have difficulty adjusting to married life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Period of Adjustment

As much as she loved and adored her new husband, Martha found it difficult adjusting to her new life. She’d gone from life in Metropolis, the possibility of law school, to life in a small town where she knew very few people.

She had begun to wonder whether love would be enough; had she made a big mistake giving up the city to live as a farmer’s wife? Especially in such isolation?

“This was your decision, Martha,” her father told her over the phone. Jonathan was out with his mother buying feed supplies for the animals, so she was alone in the house.

William clearly didn’t understand her dilemma. Of course he wouldn’t, Martha thought. He thought she should never have married Jonathan in the first place.

She rang off, twisting the wedding band around her finger as she turned back to her baking. It was at least the one thing she could do well, even if she was messing everything else up. Let’s face it, she thought as she began rolling out pie crust. Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a farmer’s wife.

As the pie went into the oven, she heard the truck pull up and went out to greet her husband. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, brushing the hair back from her face.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“It’s fine,” she said, ignoring the little jolt in her stomach at the small lie. She didn’t want to tell him that she was unhappy with her life on the farm.

He turned back to the truck and picked up a sack of feed.

“I need to get this inside,” he said, carrying it into the barn.

Jessica seemed to notice her distress.

“Sweetie, why don’t we go inside and let Jonathan work. It looks like it’s going to rain,” she said, looking up at the darkening sky.

She walked with her mother-in-law inside the house and made them some coffee. Jessica sat at the table with her cup and gestured for her to sit down next to her.

“Don’t think I don’t see what’s going on,” she said. “You’re unhappy.”

“Jonathan …” Martha began, feeling a little panicked at the thought that her husband knew of her unhappiness. Jessica patted her hand.

“No, he doesn’t know, and we’re not going to tell him. Sweetheart, no marriage is perfect. You and Jonathan have only been married a few weeks. Trust me, there is always a period of adjustment.”

“I’m just … I worry.”

“Martha, I love my son, but he can be stubborn as a mule sometimes. Don’t think I don’t know when you two have had a fight.”

It had been the stupidest of fights. She had been trying to help on the farm and Jonathan had basically dismissed her, saying he didn’t need her help. She had taken that to mean that he didn’t want the help of someone who didn’t know what she was doing.

“You know, Jonathan’s father could be just as stubborn at times. I think that’s where Jonathan gets it from. He has a certain way of working and woe betide anyone who tries to do it a different way. I think he’s just forgotten that he and his father had the same battles from time to time. It was like they were two sides of the same coin. Sometimes I wanted to knock their heads together.”

“So what do I do?” Martha asked.

“The best advice I can give is to just give it time, sweetie. Jonathan just has to remember that he’s not working this farm alone.”

It was good advice, but Martha knew it was never going to be that easy. While things slowly began to improve on the farm, it wasn’t the same in town. Whenever Jonathan took her shopping, she would notice people in town staring at her, their expressions ranging from curious to disdainful, as if she wasn’t good enough for Jonathan.

“Sweetheart, just ignore them,” Jonathan would tell her, but she couldn’t help feeling like the town pariah. Even after six months of marriage, she was still treated like an outsider.

She finally learned the reason for that when she stopped in at Nell Potter’s flower shop one day. The first time she had gone in there with her husband, Nell had gazed at her with what Martha could only call a condescending smirk, then continued to ignore her, flirting with Jonathan. Nell had opened the shop about a month after they had married.

It was fairly clear that Nell thought Jonathan had made a big mistake in choosing Martha over her, and continued to flirt even when Jonathan told her to stop. That he’d made his choice and that was the end of it.

“Well, Martha,” Nell said. “Where’s that handsome husband of yours?”

“At the feed store,” Martha told her. She tried to keep up a casual conversation with the brunette but Nell quickly lost interest. Martha began looking over the flowers, thinking she should take an arrangement to the hospital for a friend of Jessica’s, who was being treated for a minor complaint.

The bell over the door rang and Martha glanced up, recognising Lewis and Laura Lang, Nell’s sister and brother-in-law. Nell and her sister began talking in low voices, but Martha couldn’t help overhearing her name mentioned. She pretended to continue looking over the arrangements while straining to listen to the conversation. Her mother had always told her she shouldn’t eavesdrop, but she couldn’t help it.

The way the conversation was going, she finally understood why people still looked at her as an outsider. It was clear Nell was the source of it all.

When she finally found Jonathan, he was still talking with Jonas Matthews, who ran the feed store. Martha pulled him away and got in the truck.

“Did you know Nell was spreading rumours about me?” she asked.

“Nell wouldn’t do that,” he assured her.

“How would you know? Every time we’re in there, she’s flirting with you.”

“That’s just how she is,” he insisted.

“You don’t get it, Jonathan. She’s telling people all these lies about me. That’s why people still treat me like an outsider.”

“No they don’t,” he replied.

Not wanting it to escalate into a fight, Martha dropped the matter, but she never forgot it. She didn’t want to resent her husband for not seeing his ex-girlfriend for what she was. Besides, he hadn’t married Nell, he’d married her, so who cared what everyone else thought?

Her mother called her late one evening.

“Hi sweetie,” she said.

“Mom. Is everything okay?”

“Of course it is, darling. Why wouldn’t it be?”

She didn’t know what she had thought when she heard her mother’s voice on the phone. It was a rare occasion now when her parents called to speak to her. She supposed that was partly her father’s doing. Ever since the fight with Jonathan he had been growing more and more distant. Jessica assured her that her father would eventually come around - maybe when she had children.

“Your father has some news,” Mary said. “There is a judge who needs an intern, and he thinks you’d be perfect for the job.”

As much as Martha wanted to turn it down, she knew she didn’t want to waste an opportunity. She went for the interview and was hired. Jonathan wasn’t exactly happy about it, but Martha thought that since he didn’t seem to need her on the farm, she might as well do something.

Her husband at least seemed to notice she was a lot happier, even if she was forced to commute to the city every day, but it was fairly clear he wasn’t happy with it.

They began to argue more. Little things began to crop up between them until Martha started to wonder if getting married had been a mistake after all. Even Jessica’s intervention hadn’t helped.

She was tired from driving back and forth to the city all day, and Jonathan was tired from working alone on the farm. They would both fall into bed exhausted every night, barely even speaking to each other.

As winter turned to spring, the snow began to melt, and the rains came. Martha left work early one Friday evening to find Ethan and the other deputies loading sandbags into trucks. She pulled up beside the workers.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Ethan turned and frowned slightly. “Martha, hello. Uh, yeah, the rain’s been pouring all day. Looks like the river’s backing up.”

She nodded, realising if the river was backing up there could be danger of flooding. She drove home, finding a couple of trucks blocking the gravel drive.

“Jonathan?” she called, ignoring the rain pouring down as she ran toward the house. Her husband came out with Jack Jennings.

“Hi sweetheart. They just called a warning over the radio. They need people to help stop the river from flooding. We’re getting some men together and going down to see what we can do.”

Without further comment, Martha ran into the house and quickly changed into jeans and a shirt, putting on a jacket. She would no doubt get soaked, but it was better than those whose homes were at risk of being flooded. Martha grabbed work boots and put them on.

Jonathan was still loading the truck with tools and what appeared to be sacks. He looked at her.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m going with you,” she told him. He opened his mouth as if he was going to argue, and she shut him up with a look.

“Jon, we gotta go,” Jack called.

Martha got in the truck in the middle of her husband and his best friend, not commenting as Jonathan drove away from the farm and down to the river where others were already working. The river was swollen and from the look of the sky, it was only going to get worse.

She worked without complaint, even when her hands felt frozen, the skin red, the joints cracking as she helped to lay sandbags to push back the rising waters.

As she continued to work alongside her husband, she couldn’t help but catch the murmurs from the townspeople. Instead of the negative comments she expected, however, she heard nothing but admiration for the way she had just got on with it.

It was a long night and they were all exhausted. Nell and her sister kept up a steady stream of hot coffee, clearly surprised to see Martha there, but not commenting on it.

There were cheers when the rain finally stopped. Even more cheers could be heard when the sun began to rise the next morning. The floodwaters would take some time to recede, but they had done it. Twenty families, whose homes were dotted along the riverbanks, would be able to go home again.

The best part was that Martha had finally managed to break down the walls between her and the rest of the town. She was no longer considered an outsider. She was one of them.

Jonathan hugged her, giving her a passionate kiss.

“You were wonderful, sweetheart,” he said.

She stayed in her husband’s embrace, turning her head to glance at Nell, who stood watching them with an unreadable expression. Martha didn’t care. Smallville was her home now.


End file.
